tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6711156850879162685.post7416507755493635601..comments2024-01-02T23:18:18.412-08:00Comments on Yeebo Fernbottom's MMO Blog: They don't make expansions like they used toYeebohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08028940396189544294noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6711156850879162685.post-23021567783937961492022-03-13T15:44:23.816-07:002022-03-13T15:44:23.816-07:00Thanks! I certainly agree that some companies are...Thanks! I certainly agree that some companies are still doing proper expansions. ESO, WoW, GW2 and FFXIV for instance. In proportion to what I assume their budget to be, DBG is still doing a very good job with EQ and EQ II. <br /><br />However, the kinds of huge expansions that are practically a new game seem to be getting rarer, and the ones on the small end that don't really earn the term "expansion" seem to be getting a lot more common.Yeebohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08028940396189544294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6711156850879162685.post-60390308084189947682022-03-13T04:33:51.086-07:002022-03-13T04:33:51.086-07:00Excellent post. The expansions from the early year...Excellent post. The expansions from the early years of the mmo era could literally have been released as games in their own right. Kunark, Luclin and even Serpent's Spine from EQ specifically could be full games very easily, as could the Kunark and Faydwer expansions in EQII. They'd have been smaller than the actual originals but they'd still be bigger than plenty of full mmos from later years.<br /> <br />The EQII adventure packs were sniffed at a bit at the time but then othing in EQII has ever been unqualifiedly popular with the playerbase. They all ended up being fairly well liked, though, and they all have easily as much content as some so-called expansions in other games. <br /><br />I wonder if it's true that companies simply don't reinvest as much of the income from the game these days or whether it's that the games used to make more money. The EQ games almost certainly had ten times as many players back then. Also, I think SOE is a very difficult company to parse when it comes to funding (Possibly even more than Daybreak!). We have no idea how much of the costs were carried by other divisions of Sony - it was certainly said at the time that Sony barely even new SOE existed while it was part of whichever subgroup Smedley reported to. It got moved to another division later and it did seem that a lot changed after that. I used to know the details but it's all a bit of a blur now.<br /><br />I think the annual EQ and EQII expansions, while formulaic, do still qualify as genuine expansions, especially since both games also do a couple of substantial, free content updates each year that other games would happily call "expansions". I generally get three to six weeks of steady play out of an EQII expansion these days, followed by consistent use of the content for another 4-6 months. That seems like a very reasonable return on the cost.<br /><br />The GW2 expansions are also proper expansions. There's a good few weeks' content in all of them but more importantly they have almost limitless replay value. By contrast, the new SW:tOR "expansion" sounds much more like one of GW2's Living Story updates, which take a couple of sessions to finish. Those, of course, are free. Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.com